Weekly Snapshot:SM to Plague Marine

Again, I haven't gotten much done this week because I've got some exams coming up.

However, I did manage to convert a regular Space Marine to a Death Guard plague marine. Let me tell you one thing.

Nurgle conversions are easy to achieve and look awesome. This guy was actually the FIRST 40K model I had ever painted. You know those cheap snap fit space marines that they give you for your first demo painting session at Games Workshop?

Yep. This is him. Papa Nurgle decided that he would strip the guy, chop him up and repose him. Then add some lovely little textures to the surface of the armour to make it look disgusting and appropriately Nurgly.

I don't know if this plague marine will be the first of many in a new army (new Chaos codex!) or just a fun thing I did. Either way it cost me pretty much nothing.
Just spare space marine bits, the demo SM, and bits of sprue and sand for the base.

If you're interested in reposing your snap fit marine (from either AOBR or the new Dark Vengeance, etc.) I made a tutorial a while back here. 

Weekly Snapshot: AOBR Ork Convershun

I haven't been doing too much hobby this past week because I've got an exam coming up in a couple of weeks. So don't expect too many posts from me until their completion, I'm afraid.

Dark Vengeance, the new 40K starter set has been released, but I'm not planning on getting it this time round. For now...

So I've decided to repaint and convert my old Ork army which I've scrounged up from just purely AOBR Orks. I did a little reposing and made him look more...human. I was planning to run these guys as a WWII German inspired Blood Axe force.

Wow the guy hardly looks like an Ork anymore. He's still in the middle of painting, but I tried out a camo pattern on him which was new for me.

Weekly Snapshot: Knightly Blood Angel Conversion

I've been looking at the Horus Heresy: Collected Vision for some inspiration, and I've found some really interesting looking Space Marine helmet designs.

Pictured above is an AOBR marine converted to be taller than the average marine and have a more dynamic pose. The reposing tutorial can be found here.

From a normal marine helmet, I raised the top of his head a little bit, gave him a 'beak' and added a cross design. It kinda looks like a medieval knight helmet.

I got my inspiration from this picture, of Chapter Master Astelan in the Collected Visions book:

Another pre-heresy space marine tutorial coming soon!

Explorations of Miniature Photography

I have a serious issue with my photography skills. No matter how hard I try, the picture ends up looking too dark or the colours don't come out right. I don't think I need to provide a picture as proof, because I believe my older blog posts will do...

Here is what I do so far:

• Switch to Macro mode
  -ensures objects that are extremely close to the camera lens, are in focus
• Sit the camera on the table top (or tripod)
  -so that there aren't any wobbles or disruptions in the photograph
• Use a lightbox
  -so that light will be evenly dispersed across the whole model, and prevent shadows 
• Use three white lamps
  -maximum lighting!
• Use a white backdrop 
  -so that light will bounce off and onto the model
• Shoot in a dark room
  -prevents external light from interfering and distorting the photograph

These are the fundamentals of taking good photographs of minis, but just what is wrong with me?
Exposure. This is how much light your camera lets in. So the higher your exposure, the more light your photograph will be.

Zero exposure

1.5 Exposure

Definitely a huge improvement! The problem is, it looks a little unnatural and the reds are too harsh. 

A little editing on Photoshop and voila! I think I may have found the solution to my problem!
I'll try to figure out other ways of improving my photography.

Hope it helped for others as well!

Weekly Snapshot: "We're Big Boys Now!"

"We're big boys now!" says my Blood Angels. Well, at least one of them.

This week, I made one of my boys true scale... in a manner of speaking. I simply chopped off his legs, pinned them so that they were longer, and filled the gap with green stuff.

Real simple stuff, but it has made my Space Marine so much more intimidating and realistic.
I've always had an issue with the proportions of the GW Space Marine. It was so...squat and even cuddly looking!

My reasoning behind this conversion was that I wanted to get the look of a genuine true scale conversion, but without all the hard work.

Doghouse Pattern Truescale Marine

Pictured above is Doghouse's amazing true scale marine. There's a link to his tutorial on Bolter and Chainsword if you're interested: here

But the thing is, it requires a feth load of time, effort, skill and loads of terminators legs.

A regular male's lower body is about the length of 4 heads stacked on top of another, excluding the groin. But GW's Space Marines aren't exactly in proportion. The upper part of the legs are shorter than the lower parts.

So I simply extended the upper parts so that they were equal in length to the lower parts. See my reasoning?

Tutorial - Easy MK4 Space Marine Helmets

In last week's Weekly Snapshot, I went from a default MKVII Space Marine helmet, to an MKIV.

So how would one achieve such a thing?
First of all, make sure you have these:

• An MKVII SM helmet
• Some form of sculpting tools
• Sculpting putty (I used Green Stuff)
• Your hands

Weekly Snapshot: Assault Marines!

So today, I spent a couple of hours working on my Blood Angels again. Man, I hadn't touched red paint in ages!

You'd think that the main parts of the mini; for example the red of the assault marines, would be the most difficult and time consuming to paint.

Nope.

Yes, the red does take the longest to paint, but the details; helmet lenses, chainsword teeth, parchment, etc., are the most annoying. You have to keep switching the colour of the paint. They're so small, but they consume a surprisingly large amount of your painting time.

It's ridiculous.

I've spent all this time on them, yet I'm not happy with them. At least, not with the photographs.
I really don't know why they turn out darker than they should, I use a lightbox.

Perhaps I'll explore this issue in a post in the future.

Mastering shadows and highlights

So a while ago I posted up a tutorial on highlighting your figs here. The problem is knowing where the shadows and highlights go on a model. It's been a major issue for me in the past, but I've seen some improvements in my painting ever since I used this trick.

Weekly Snapshot- Scratchbuilt MK4 helmet

I've always loved Forgeworld. All of their kits. Every individual model. So it's no wonder I began to lust after these puppies:

Weekly Snapshot: Blood Axe Ork

Today is the start of something new. As you may have noticed, my blog name has changed because, well to be honest, the previous one was a little long. I've also changed my name for the same reason, and because I thought a mysterious, foreign sounding name was a perfect match for an Eldar Farseer.

Cutting Costs: The Glue

We all know that enjoying our little hobby can be tough on our wallets. And your ears as your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend/dog repeatedly complains about those "little men". 

Review: Maelstrom Games

Oh God, my last post was 4 months ago. I feel the guilt overwhelming me. My eyes are starting to pop out of their sockets. My teeth are falling out...


To get this pressure off my back, I've decided to post up a review of Maelstrom Games, a hobby and modelling distributor based in the UK. You can check them out here.

Nids and Space Wolves!!!

It's official! Joy for all the Tyranid and Space Wolf players out there who have been waiting for these for who-knows-how-long. I just received this email from Games Workshop. How this release will affect the current meta out there I don't know...

Finding Time and Motivation

We often find we have less and less time on our hands as we grow older, what with all that focus on work, school and family. 

Beautifying AOBR-the Tactical Marine (Tutorial)

It is now February but we still have about half a year until the 6th Edition of 40K AND its respective starter set comes out. Starter sets over the history of 40K were designed to allow a new player to enter the hobby with relative ease, at a relatively cheap price.


You got all the essentials that would let you experience the different aspects of the game. (I'm trying to pretend that I know all about the history of 40K starter sets, when in fact I started as a noob when 5th came out!)

How to paint Blood Angels

Hello everyone, it's been ages since my last post (1-2 months I think) because I have been busy with my life and all. The good news is that I've been finding more free time lately because the holiday season is coming soon (Christmas!) so that means I'll be able to post more often and paint more often.